I came down to the senior center at 11 this morning. We had a lot to do to get things ready. We set up big signs on A frames at two prime locations in Fitchburg. It was freezing out, and very very windy. Trevor and Liz drove by an hour later and they had to jump out and fix it. It had fallen over from the wind.
I went around to the places selling tickets and I picked up $300 from the local bookstore, and $170 from the liquor store. I was really surprised at how much money they had! The liquor store only had two tickets left! I delivered everyone 30 more tickets to give them a final 24 hours to push them. Even the library had sold out by 6pm. I ran 30 more to them too, cause they’re open all day tomorrow.

After a full day, Joel made us all dinner. He made a great shrimp and sausage pasta dish. We all sat down and relaxed after a full day at work. After dinner, Joel found a cake in the fridge that had been there a few days that said “Happy Birthday Barbara. ” He said “Sorry Barbara” as he opened it and then grabbed ice cream, cool whip (said in the Stewie Griffin way), and frozen strawberries.

It’s 10pm, and I’m still here. It’s been 11 long hours of preparing. But the hall looks great, and we’re coming back at 9am to help Joel cook. Then, I’m heading to the gym, and will be back to help around noon. It’ll be another super long day tomorrow.

I bought a new deodorant when I was in Boston with Megan.  We went to Lush, and bought one of my mom’s co-workers a shampoo bar.  She got diagnosed with breast cancer about 2 years ago (RIGHT after her husband left her.  That’s the way it works with us… God kicks us when we’re already down. [For those who don't know, I got my diagnosis a month after Steve cheated on me]) and she wants to start using all natural products (organic, no pesticides, cause I know the word natural means jack shit).

So anyway, while we were there, Megan and I both looked at their deodorants. We both use Tom’s of Maine, and I like it…. but I still get stinky. I want to use a regular deodorant (not an anti-prespirant, cause it has aluminum in it), and so I figured I’d try Lush’s Aromaco bar.  It’s this weird little bar that you rub on your under arm.  It’s kind of like bar soap that costs $9, but they say it will last for months and months and months.  So far, so good, and I think it keeps me smelling nicer than Tom’s did.  With Tom’s, I would be standing around doing something, and would kinda smell myself, and say “What the crap?  I have deodorant on, why do I smell???”  It was very annoying, and I was just hoping “well, I have a couple layers on, so maybe the smell won’t radiate out from me.”

Brew Year’s Eve is tomorrow.  I’m going down to the Armory today to wash the pint glasses.  521 of them. Eek!  I’m also bringing my laptop with me, so I have tunes.  And Trevor and Liz will be there, so it’ll be fun.

And on a sadder note, I think I lost a pair of my iPod headphones.  After I left the gym yesterday, I took them out of my phone so I could use my phone… and now I can’t find them.  I don’t know if they fell out of my car, or what… but I’m bummed.

UPDATE:  I found my headphones!  They were in between the passenger door and the seat.  Weird place for them since I sit in the driver’s seat!

I just realized last night that I haven’t been single around the holidays since I was a junior in high school - back in 2000.  That’s a long time!  I had to make sure about the dates, so I thought about all of my boyfriends and when I dated them.  Whenever I broke up with a guy, I was back in another serious relationship within a couple months. Here’s the list:

Josh - November 2001 - September 2002

Eric - December 2002 - March 2006

Steve - September 2006 - March 2008

Hahahaha… that lists looks like it’s on a grave stone or something… but I guess that kind of is the life and death of the relationship.  But anyway…. so since the Christmas of 2000, I had a boyfriend every single time, for Christmas and New Years.  That is so weird!

It was actually very nice not having a boyfriend this Christmas, because it meant that I didn’t have to buy him a Christmas present!  It did feel weird that I didn’t have more presents to purchase, but it was nice to save $100!

I don’t mind not having a boyfriend, because it allows me to figure my own stuff out, to do my own thing, and to get to know other guys and then decide that I don’t like them.  ;)   But I, like many other people out there, am waiting to find “the one.”  I don’t think it’s about finding a guy that I really want (meaning, I don’t desperately want a boyfriend), but I want to be happy.  I’m hoping “the one” will make me incredibly happy.  That’d be nice.

16 days later, and we finally have our telephone, internet, and cable TV back. Finally, we are back to normal here at home. We were all going crazy without our media stuff…. especially Internet. And especially Dylan. I wasn’t able to read my RSS reader, and so I had 149 unread new blogs. Ugh. That’s a lot of blogs to read. There’s 22 alone from Kath Eats Real Food.

Megan left last night, and called me early this morning to tell me she got home safe and sound. It was 9am-ish when she called, and I think she had only been home 20 minutes. Her plane left here at 7pm last night. That’s a long ass day/night to be traveling. When we dropped her off at the airport, my dad asked her if she was happy with Mac, and Megan said “Dad, you’re going to make me cry.” And then that made ME cry. And then she saw that I was crying, and then she started crying. I really miss her, and wish that we lived close enough that we could do dinner parties and stuff. I think that would be really fun. Whenever we leave each other, I cry. Every single time! Here’s us in England at the train station when we were saying goodbye when I visited her over spring break in 2006.

I’m going through my phone, and I’ll add pictures and talk briefly about things.

Larry got a generator from a co-worker around the 18th or so, and he was able to fit it in the back of his Mini Cooper.  It was quite the challenge.  He wasn’t able to close the trunk, and had to drive home in the freezing cold with it open.

We moved back into the house on the 20th, the day Megan came home.  We had a generator that we used, and it gave us power to pretty much every except the kitchen and family room.  We had an extension cord running to the fridge.  Neither Megan nor Dylan could appreciate what we had been through without power.  Dylan was down in Worcester, and didn’t come home until Friday afternoon.  We had already been without power for one week when he came home.  Megan came home and we had the generator, so she didn’t know anything either.  Monday morning, the generator ran out of gas, and then it wouldn’t start up again.  It was only 11 degrees outside, so my dad thought it was too cold.  Him and Megan dragged it in the house to warm it up.  Then, my dad changed the oil just in case.  When they brought it back outside, it started right up.  I had gone to the gym and showered there, because I didn’t want to hang out at home with a wet head with the house only 54 degrees (our house sure does cool down quickly…. but it was pretty cold out!)

December 19th and 21st: We had two huge snow storms. We got about 10 inches each day, totaling about two feet of snow (give or take). It was crazy. December 20th was a mandatory 11 hour day at Macy’s. The women’s shoes department had their holiday party which I was invited to (I don’t have a department, so they adopted me). I ran out in the snow storm to buy hummus and crackers, and Jenny and I shared a rotisserie chicken for dinner. It was delicious. We were both without power, so we didn’t have anything we could bring from home, so we had our own little feast at Macy’s. There was a crap load of snow when we left… it was suppose to be a storm Friday night, and Sunday night, but the storm never stopped on Saturday. We had three full days of snow.

December 23rd, Megan and I went to Boston for my doctor appointments (see previous post).

Christmas Eve we went to church at 5pm, and then came home and had a wonderful Chicken Pot Pie that Megan made. She also made delicious roasted root vegetables. They were unbelievable. I want to make them at least once a week from here on out.

On Christmas, we had a really good free range turkey (bought at Whole Foods!), stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn pudding, and cranberry sauce. It was like Thanksgiving all over again!

December 26th, I had to work all day at Macy’s, then Megan and I drove out to Boston with Becky to Pat and Nora’s Annual Yankee Swap. It was a lot of fun, and we all got to take home fun gifts.

December 27th - It was cold and rainy, but my gym was still closed, so I went for a run anyway. It was raining the whole way, but I managed to get in three miles. I got home and my pants were sticking to me, and my legs were bright red and cold. My face was bright red and hot! (I was able to run outside every day but the 26th, cause I was just too busy).

Megan and I went down to see Denise at the Total You, and Megan chopped off all of her hair to give to Wigs For Kids.  Denise was the one who did her hair for the wedding.  She’s a wonderful woman, and I know her from Destare.  Her and her husband were bummed that I left, but they understood why I did.  Look at how long Megan’s hair was!!!  And Denise ended up cutting it shorter than in that picture, because she had to style it!  There’s a bag of hair in our family room that I have to mail in.  I hope it doesn’t get thrown out before I get around to it!

Today, my entire family went down to the Armory to clean up after the emergency shelter was there. We also began setting up for the Brew Year’s Eve party. We got all the tables set up, and most of the decorations, too. We’re still a little freaked out about the food we’re going to serve, but we know the desserts are all set. We just need to make sure we get people in the door!!!!

Monday night at 6. You can see the clock in the picture of Megan with the fridge. I noticed the neighbors across the street had power, so my dad went to the basement to unplug the generator. Trevor and Amy had arrived for our dinner, so he went down to help. I turned the kitchen light on so we’d be able to see it turn on. They turned off the generator and the house went black, then power came back. When we saw the kitchen light go on, we all cheered.

11 days later and we got power back.
I finally saw a Unitil (our power company) truck on Tuesday, day 12. It was getting gas. I hadn’t seen one at all the entire time, and when I finally see one, they aren’t even working. HA!

Tuesday Megan and I went into Boston because I had two doctor appointments at Mass General with my thyroid doctor. I had my 6 month post radiation ultra sound. It came back negative, which is good. My blood work will be back next week. He thinks my levels are too high which is why I’m hungry all the time. He said young people tend to eat more with a high level, thus can gain weight. Most people think “hyperthyroid” means being skinny (high metabolism) but the high metabolism makes Hypers super hungry, so we eat more and actually gain weight. That blows. If I had better self control, maybe I wouldn’t have a problem.
After my appointments, we went out shopping for gifts and groceries. Megan will only eat meat if it’s humane. Meaning free range. So we had to find free range chicken for our chicken pot pie tonight, and a free range turkey for tomorrow. Quite the adventure. We went to two Whole Foods and one Trader Joe’s. Megan was disappointed with TJs, but very very impressed with WF. We both got a yummy dinner at WF and we even brought home our plastic containers to reuse them. That’s a picture of Megan boxing everything up to take home.

We didn’t get a bag at WF even though we forgot to bring our Chico Bag. I had grapefruits and brie in my purse, and we carried the cider and turkey by hand. We are trying very hard to be Eco friendly!

That’s all for now. We still don’t have cable or Internet, so I have to do all my updates via iPhone. It takes forever! And I’m sure there are errors I haven’t caught.
When we do get Internet, I’ll be sure to update. I’ve been taking nice pictures on my phone of various things. Sorry I can’t put the pictures where they go, this app just places them at the bottom.

There are actually work crews outside of our house. And they’re working!

My dad went out and asked them “will we have power today??” They said “maybe”.

Also, Joel wants to cancel the Brew Years Eve event. We’ve only gotten $1,000 in donations from local companies. Plus, Joel is in charge if our cooking, and I think he’s going to be too burnt out to cook for us (he’s been doing all the cooking for the emergency shelter). We are going to talk about it tonight at our house. We are having the soup party. We are only having trouble with desserts (cause we want them to be homemade) and heating up bread - cause our oven still doesn’t work.

My dad told me the other day that his sister (who is a nurse) read a medical article that said that artificial sweeteners do something to your brain that doesn’t allow the satiety center to work correctly. Meaning, I drink diet Coke, and my brain never really lets my body feel full.

“That might be why you’re hungry all the time,” my dad said.

Hmmmm.

And so i’ve decided to give up diet drinks again to see how I feel. I gave them up for two weeks not long ago, but I don’t remember if my appetite changed. I don’t think I paid attention to that. This time that’s what I’ll concentrate on. Megan came home tonight, and she hates that I drink diet stuff, so this is the perfect time to quit. I’ll drink water, seltzer (with fresh squeezed lime or a splash 100% juice if I feel the need), and coffee with skim milk if I want caffeine. Christmas Eve I have to be at Macy*s at 5:45am, so I’ll want coffee then!

We are back at home now. My dad got a generator from someone at work.
Yay!
That means we are still really without power and heat, cable and Internet. But we have a generator that gives us some power and heat. There’s no power in the kitchen or downstairs bathroom. We have an extension cord running to the fridge. But if the generator stops, then we’re back to the dark cold. It’s unbelievable that we are still without power. Larry and Trevor are also still without power. It’s crazy. We were suppose to have a big dinner Monday night to celebrate Megan being home, but our stove doesn’t work. I’m not sure if we will to it now, but I think we should to get all of us back into the Christmas spirit. No power in the kitchen might be an issue, though.

I’m glad that Megan is home. Hopefully it’ll get us feeling more festive. We’ve all been pretty bummed and stressed out that we have been living out of our cars and a hotel.
We should do our best to make this coming week as good as possible.

The night home alone in my house was awful.  Absolutely awful.  I arrived at 12:45, and luckily, our big camping lantern was at the front door waiting for me.  It was soooo sooooo cold.  I don’t think I went to the thermometer to check the temp, but I should have!!!

Once I got to my room, I started to bundle up for bed.  I wore:

• Two pairs socks
• Thick sweatpants
• long sleeve shirt
• hooded sweatshirt, hood on, and tied
• a fleece, winter hat

On my bed, I had:

• my sheets
• my electric blanket (that obviously wasn’t working)
• My Martha Stewart regular bed comforter  (these first three are what I have on my bed normally)
• My old comforter that was in Megan’s closet
• Dylan’s HUGE thick comforter that Megan made (well, she made the cover for it)
• My Mexican blanket (that’s more of a throw)
• My generic “Snuggie” - which I used as a blanket - I wasn’t wearing it (but perhaps I should have!)

AND I WAS STILL FREEZING COLD!!!!

It was awful.  Firstly, because I got into the bed and it was freezing.  Usually, I walk into my room, crank the heated blanket all the way up, and then get ready for bed (change, brush teeth, etc.) and come back to a nice warm bed (then I turn the blanket to Low, or leave it on 2).  This time, my bed was absolutely freezing.  It was the most horrible thing in the whole world.  I never want to do it again.  I was thinking about getting out of bed to get socks to put on my hands like mittens, but I was so cold I just couldn’t convince myself to get up.  Even once I warmed the bed up, I was still very, very cold.  My alarm went off at 6am for my to talk my thyroid pill, and it was all I could do to reach my hands out of bed to grab my pill bottle and water.  My mom poked her head into my room at 9:30 to see if I was alive.  I guess they got to the house at 8, had been walking around, shoveled (cause it had snowed), and I didn’t hear them at all.  I was in full hibernation mode.

But I survived, and it’s a story to tell.  Moving on.

We’ve been eating out a lot.  Lots of take out, and lots of restaurants.  Here’s the list:

Friday - City Hall Cafe (baked haddock with mashed potatoes and green beans)
Saturday - Espresso Pizza (Larry and I got eggplant and peppers on ours)
Sunday - Boston Market (yummy rotisserie chicken with mashed potatoes and stuffing!)
Monday - Brew City - in Worcester with Dylan (awful chicken picatta - it was with a cream sauce!)
Tuesday - Worked at Macy’s - (I made myself pasta with zucchini and summer squash, I dunno what my parents did)
Wednesday - Il Ricordi  - formerly the West Fitchburg House of Pizza (Chicken and Broccoli with pasta)
Thursday - Gardner Ale House (linguine with peppers, zucchini, asparagus, and mushrooms)

Everything was really really good except for the green beans at City Hall Cafe, and the Chicken Picata I had at Brew City.  No one liked their meal at Brew City.  I don’t recommend it.  On the other hand, Il Ricordi was amazing.  All three of us LOVED our meal.

We’re still without power.  It’s been a full week.  No one more has power that we know of.  Of our friends, it’s Sara, Liz, and Gail and Bob (where my parents’ slept the other night).  Everyone else is still without power.  Larry got a generator, but needs help putting it in.  It requires a four-pronged outlet, which he does not have.  He said once he gets it all set and running, we are welcome to go and stay with him.  He has a very large four bedroom home all to himself.  I already said tonight at dinner (Larry came with us to the Gardner Ale House) that whoever gets power first will have everyone over for a nice home cooked meal (I’m thinking vegetarian lasagna - Larry is a vegetarian) and a sleep over.  I think we’re all a little sick of eating out and not being home.

I think we’re leaving the hotel tomorrow, and staying at Gail and Bob’s.  Dylan comes home tomorrow morning, and my mom is getting freaked out about our family getting larger (Megan comes home on Saturday), and us still without a heated home.

Oh, and head on over to MizFit and leave a comment on today’s entry — for every person who comments, she’ll donate $.10 to Safeplace, a local domestic abuse shelter.  All it takes is a comment - take the minute to leave one.  She’s one of the blogs that I get in my RSS feed everyday.

Poison from unhealthy plastic toxins from leaching in it, that is. It won’t protect you from your crazy next door cubicle-neighbor poisoning your food at work, though.

Emiliano designed the website for this awesome online store, Healthy Kitchenware, and they are have a really cool stainless steel lunch carrier!  I love all the new stainless steel stuff that’s out, AND lunch.  Especially lunch.  They have a lot of really cool things, even mats that you can use to wrap your sandwiches in, rather than having to waste a plastic baggie.  They’re still lined with some sort of plastic, but they are reusable, and can also be used as a placemat.  You unwrap your sandwich, and you have a nice clean place to eat it, too.  We have tons and tons of tupperware things at home, so I just bring my sandwiches in those, and reuse them.  But the mat is a neat idea.

Macy*s has this set up called the “Believe Station”. Kids come and write letters to Santa. For every letter that is put in the big mailbox, Macy*s donates $1 to the Make A Wish Foundation.
I wrote a letter asking Santa for power back at least by Saturday when Megan arrived.
Twice.

The hotel was booked for tonight, so we had to move out. My parents are staying with friends the next town over, but I don’t get out of work until midnight, so I’m just going to stay at home in the dark cold. Alone. (I didn’t want to walk into a strange home at 12:45am).
I hope I drive home, and see our Christmas lights on. That would be wonderful.
If not, we have the hotel booked for tomorrow night.